We won the battle for $2 rice, but are we losing our fight against food waste? UC Sustainability Office chatted with Sharon McIver, from Our Daily Waste, about the 2017 waste audit and what she learnt from trawling through 600kg’s worth of our empty red bull cans and leftover Captain Ben’s fries.

Read on, and see some challenging images below.

 Could you begin by explaining what the waste audit is exactly? Why it is necessary and how it is conducted?

A waste audit is when you take a waste sample from an organization and physically go through the bags, hand-sorting each waste item into recycling and landfill categories, weighing each at the end, along with the total organics. The data can then be used to assess how the UC is doing in terms of waste reduction, diversion, and how much contamination is in the recycling. My qualifications are in Cultural Studies, so I’m always looking for the connection in all things, and I think deeply about the causes of waste as well as the outcomes. With that kind of data we can make suggestions on how the cafés can save money on procurement, and the UC waste fees, by replacing unnecessary items with reusable solutions.

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What were some findings of the audit that may surprise students?

The staggering amount of food waste was the heaviest stream collected, at 43% of all waste audited. One week’s worth (of three) was from the UCSA kitchens, but that only accounts for about a fifth of the total organics weight. Overall, 40% of the organics was in the landfill bins, most of it still inside the cardboard boxes, along with serviettes and plastic forks. Virtually every box we opened had food still in it. Even more shocking, is that over half the people who received tomato sauce sachets didn’t even open them! I was a broke student for 12 years and as my business builds I still live like one, and this level of food waste makes no sense. Either students are so well off they can afford not to eat it once they’ve bought it, or maybe the food portions are too big, or it isn’t up to standard. It could be there’s been a cultural shift where people signify their affluence by leaving something. It would be fascinating to research this further, but one of the things I’ll be recommending is that the UC join the Love Food Hate Waste programme.

What small steps can staff and students take to reduce their waste and be more sustainable?

One of the things I often tell people in workshops or interviews is that ‘recycling is not sustainable’. It’s better than landfilling but if you want to be properly sustainable then go reusable. Have you ever thought about how ugly disposable items are?  I’ve been asking people to ask themselves the big question – ‘does this go with my outfit?’ before accepting a disposable cup or plastic fork. You can get some amazing reusable options now that also look stylish – and nothing makes you feel smugger than drinking your daily fix out of a glass cup with a lid to match your outfit. Yes, it takes a bit of effort to rinse between uses, but there are plenty of options on a campus this size and this is a small price to pay for the huge positive effect it will have. Once you get into it, the buzz you get from not contributing to the problem makes it easy to change long term, and you start making changes elsewhere. Reusable solutions also make great presents.

If even one in ten people switched to reusable cups, containers and cutlery it would make a huge difference to the UC’s waste output and costs (and landfill fees are only ever going up). The first audit I did at the UC was as a staff member during the summer of 2010/11 and the cafés were still using crockery plates. After the February 2011 earthquake I witnessed the removal of dishwashing facilities from the cafés – all in the guise of expediency in getting things ‘back to normal’. Six years later, ‘normal’ is for the majority of meals and drinks to be served in disposable service ware and it doesn’t look to be changing soon. Unfortunately, this means it’s now up to the students, staff and workers at the UC to take charge of their own waste.

Saying no to anything disposable can make a huge difference. Imagine if you say no to a coffee cup a day – that’s a couple of bins worth over a year. Instead of getting a single-use plastic fork every lunch time, bring a cutlery set from home and keep it in your bag. In regards to things like tomato sauce sachets – if you don’t think you are going to use it, simply say no.

Is there any messages or suggestions that you would like to communicate to the staff and students of UC regarding our waste habits?

As both a student and later as staff in various roles, I spent around fifteen years at the UC, including upgrading the recycling system to the yellow/red/green scheme before I left in 2012. The thing I love about the campus is the sense of all that thinking going on, and it was great being back amongst it for the audit. And as proud alumnus – I’d ask that everyone applies that intellect to waste reduction, starting with questioning their current habits. I’d love to see an interdisciplinary approach taken to solving physical challenges at the UC – imagine what could happen if the management used that giant skill set to solve sustainability problems, starting with waste. Then we’d see behaviour change on a massive scale.

It’s time for each and every one of us in the UC community to work together and improve our waste output. Think before you buy it. Think before you bin it. Think sustainability.

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